Alicia and Obsessions

So there is this woman at my office. She works on another team but we share the floor with them. This means that she walks by my desk a lot and also I see her in the kitchen/copy room, etc.

She sucks. She's one of those people that when she walks by you are praying that she doesn't open her mouth and say anything because whatever she's going to say is going to be awkward and you aren't going to know how to respond. This is an example from this morning:

Her: Believe it or not, I'm going to get some coffee to calm down.
Me: (while still pretending to work on something and not looking up) *Awkward laughter*
Her: *Actual laughter*, and then she walked away.

See, she probably wanted me to ask her "Hey, why do you need to calm down?" But I knew that if I did that I was going to get some horrible stupid annoying story where the bottom line is that she was a bitch and then no one understood her point of view. But - instead she made her awkward announcement. Ugh, she is so annoying.

Another story about her consists of the time when I made some sort of treats for the office and I had a bunch extra and so I put them on a plate in front of my desk. She came over and randomly started telling me this story about how there was this birthday party for some kids and her and her mom were there (she CONSTANTLY talks about her mom in stories) and how her friend had baked some cookies, the kind where you press your thumb into them or some shit, I don't know. Anyway, apparently these cookies are to die for and her friend had baked her a box and her mom a box. The kids were looking for some treats and her mom offered her box of cookies to the kids. Which to me, was really nice and thoughtful and something that mom's would think to do. Well, when her mom suggested that she also offer up her cookies she told me, "I was not going to share my cookies from my friend with those stupid kids." And when her mom asked to have ONE cookie, Alicia (yes, that's her name) was like "No, sorry you can't have any." She was going on and on about how she doesn't share things. What a bitch. They are just fucking cookies.

I had to pretend to agree with her and nod and smile the whole time or I might have wanted to choke her.

Ok, enough of stupid Alicia and onto my current obsessions:
1. Tomato Basil soup from Le Madeline
2. Orangina
3. Anthropoligie but a hatred b/c everything is over priced in the god forsaken catalogue.
4. Compressed Air (Current ne Consistent)
5. Jake


I hope everyone is having a great day. Tomorrow I leave for MIAMI!!!!! It's going to be so amazing and I can't wait to spend the weekend down there with all these fun girls! It's Erin's bachelorette party and I am so ready to rock out.

I MUST go now or I will ramble on forever.

Kisses, SL

Radio and List

A few comments:

1. I had an amazing bridal shower last (oops, two weekends ago) weekend. Thanks to Stephanie for putting it on and also to all my friends that came. The only downside to the shower was that I had to wear a blindfold while my dad was driving me all around Maryland to trick me as to where the party was. I also had my black pashmina on my head making it look like I was being kidnapped and/or wearing a burka.

2. What EXACTLY is twitter? I'm sorry that I'm not so like obsessed with it like everyone else seems to be. It seems like something that I could and would like and so I'm afraid to start using it.

3. I was on the radio this morning. They were talking about this list of the top 10 men that OTHER men have like man crushes on. They asked listeners who they thought their men would want to like sleep with, but not really, mostly like "want to be". I called in and said James Bond. Jake loves him and also specifically Sean Connery. I wanted to say Magnum P.I. but I also didn't want to look like a loser on the radio. They totally aired me telling everyone that it was awesome. Not two seconds later Jose called me from the beltway saying he heard me and also that I have a recognizable voice. Which I don't think is true.

4. This shit with Leah is getting out of control.

5. Wedding invitations went out last week and we've already gotten responses. Yippee! It's all so exciting!

6. One last thing re: #4. Billy Mays was on the list of man crushes. WHAT? PLEASE...can SOME GUY please leave a comment as to why the FUCK you would want to hook up with Billy Mays. He NEVER stops screaming and he's a douche. He sells oxyclean and those stupid little burger molds. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MEN! Most of the men on the list were totally awesome but Billy Mays?! GET REAL!

7. I ate too much at lunch. I'm stuffed but the food was so good I can't stop eating. :)

That's all for now.

I heart radio.

xoxox, SL

Office Commentary and Shout Outs

So, it's high time that I explain a little bit about the people that I work with. I pray to Christ that they will never see this blog but if they do, maybe it will be after I've moved on or something.

Brent: Brent is my boss. He is the head principal of the group. He's pretty short, has decent hair but he dresses like he's supposed to star in a 1982 GQ Magazine. He wears navy blue with black, and not in a good way. He sometimes wears retarded belts and cowboy boots. He has flare jeans too. He just got glasses for the first time and is obsessed with them. He' the guy that is always taking them on and off to clean them and mess with them. He drinks more coffee that any man that I've ever met. Literally, he's always drinking some. ALWAYS. He is obnoxious, I often end up having to treat him like a child. It's his way or the highway, or rather that your way is significantly inferior to his way. He works insane hours. He lives in Kentlands and has a little daughter who is really cute. Her name is Cassidy. I like him although sometimes I want to choke him.

Chris: Chris is so nice. He's another principal in the group and hes like almost 40 I think. He's single and he is looking to buy a condo somewhere in a nice neighborhood. He doesn't really have much of a life (his words, not mine) but he is so great. We hang out sometimes. He went to Univ. of Delaware and says he needs a girlfriend. I think he's pretty cute, but he works too much. Like Brent but Brent is already married. The other day I was straightening some of his jackets on the back of his door and I broke off the hook.

Michael: Michael is from Israel. He wishes he was working for Lehman Brothers or something and he wants to do stock valuations for a big bank. He's very savvy and smart and is jealous that I have my Series 7. We get along really well. He showed me this radio station that's on this Hebrew channel that is like AMAZING. Sometimes they speak in Hebrew but it's ok, I only really care about the music. He also drives a motorcycle. We talk about Jewish stuff a lot.

Tara: She's a manager and she RULES. She grew up in Astoria and she's my homie. I really can't say enough nice things about her. She's cute and has a biting NYC talk that I love. She's my gossip buddy since there aren't that many women in my group. I love Tara.

Kyle: Kyle rules. He is possibly the most awesome person. He is really funny and once you break his first shy-ish layer, he is pretty much hilarious. He works like 70 hour weeks, especially during this time of year. I really like him. Kyle can also bake, which is shocking. He is married to this lady Hillary and they made these like fancy cookies one day. Kyle lives in Gaithersburg near Brent.

Jordan: Jordan has a cute son Jesse. We talk about Jesse a lot. He's effing adorable. I make Jordan send me pictures of him and we talk about how cute he is a lot. Jordan is a laywer and is also really smart. He wears sweaters a lot, but so do a lot of men in my group. Jordan wears glasses too. He sits next to Kyle in the corner.

Kumar: Kumar is indian. He just had a baby girl. Kumar is a little slovenly. He a lot of times has food on his face. He eats lunch at like 10:30am and usually its some nasty ass microwave meal. He drags his feet and has a belly that hangs over his pants. He's sort of annoying and is constantly asking me for office supplies that I've never heard of and then insists I must have them. He talks weird and in circles and I rarely can get a straight answer out of him. He's late a lot and I don't really understand that. Kumar is not my favorite person in the office.

Dhar: Ah...Dhar. He was shy at first but now we are homies. He is actually younger than me, he JUST turned 26 yesterday. HBDD! :) Tomorrow as a team we are going out to lunch to celebrate. He has kind of wild black hair and I think he's pretty cute too. He wears cologne, which is sort of cute. I like Dhar, he makes me laugh.

Melanie: Melanie does a lot of work on real estate valuations. She is REALLY pregnant. She is married to this Ethiopian guy and her other two kids are GORGEOUS. She is from Germany and she has a German accent, it's cute. She brought me back German chocolate from her trip and I ate it in one second. She also broughtt me this German candy bar that I thought was dark chocolate and so I took a big bite out of it and then realized it was marzipan. I had to spit it out. I think marzipan tastes like death. She sometimes has lipstick like on her face too. She is super nice though, I like her.

Gillian: She was from England and she wore a wig and she got fired yesterday.


SHOUT OUTS:

Jess Povtak: Hi! I hope you are well! I miss you!
Stephanie: Yo homie, so glad you are in town, it's been amazing hanging out with you every night!
Jake: Hey dude, two months from Monday! Love you!
Tanzer & Vance: Raise your hand if you miss working in the same office as each other!
CK: Don't worry about the invites. They were just re-printed and it was no harm no foul! xo

Well...I think this is enough for today!

Tonight I'm having Jerry's Pizza (HELL YEAH!) for dinner with my family as we work on wedding things. If your invitation has a pepperoni smudge, don't worry about it ok?!

XXXXX,
SL

Lay Offs and Other Things

I know, it seems like I lied when I said I would be updating my blog more, but It's ALWAYS on my mind. Work has been INSANE ever since my bacherlorette weekend. I have a few things to say.

First of all: Wedding planning is out of control. OUT OF CONTROL. I'm sort of overwhelmed but also it's exciting. My sister is in town this week b/c my bridal shower is on Saturday and she planned it. I can't wait to see all my friends again! It's like never ending fun!

I'm sure all you Lehman people remember that usually my desk was neat and organized but my desk today looks like a shit show. It's so messy. There are papers all over the place and it's nutso.

Tonight Stephanie is coming over for dinner. Jake is making some delicious thing.

One horrible thing right now is that my firm (where I just started working in December) is laying off people. This afternoon was the first round of cuts. It was 15% of the workforce. One lady got laid off from my group and I feel bad for her on a personal level but she did sort of suck and never did anything right. I'm not one for "deserving" to get fired, but people need to know that this economy sucks and they always need to be on their toes. They can't just skate by anymore. People need to take their jobs seriously and not take them for granted. It also sucks for people that are looking for jobs, like right out of college kids. We have totally halted our recruiting process and taking massive cost cutting maneuvers.

Raise your hand if your wedding invitations were all printed and then your sister was looking at them and pointed out that marriage was spelled wrong.

*Me raising hand*

Don't even get me started....

Ok, I know this was not a juicy entry or anything but I barely had time for this. I'll try more this week.

Happy Hump Day!
SL

Updates and Bachelorette Weekend

Good morning everyone!

So---I gave up Facebook for lent. Usually I give up something that I definitely eat/do/etc, but this year, I am giving up something that I just spend too much time on. Facebook isn't blocked at work. WHich honestly, is a HUGE mistake. I don't understand why it's not. I'm sure that people (ahem: me) go on it periodically throughout the day. Honestly, I'm sure that there are people that actually spend HOURS on it wasting time and not working.

I have to comment on some of the comments that people have left me.

Steph: I hope you are having a fantastic time in Espana. I love that country and am so jealous you are there! Live it up, studying abroad was the best thing I ever did!

Jess: Ok, so the crab cookies. I love your idea. I think it would be even better if I topped the cookies with little black sprinkles, like ACTUAL crabbies, like you know - the ones in your crotch. Hahahaha, I think it would be hilarious. I'm getting giddy just thinking about it. How is your abrasion situation btw?

Please spread the word about my blog to others! :)

Ok - back to the real story.

Tonight I'm flying up to NYC for my bachelorette weekend. I.am.so.excited! I can't wait to get all my friends in the same place at the same time to have a blast with me! Yay! Tanzer and Vance and I are hanging out tonight when I get in, really low key. Tomorrow I'm going to go into Lehman and say hi to people/friends and then I feel like there are a zillion things I need to do before all the people arrive! We are going to have a great time. Biggs/Vance/Tanz did such a fantastic job planning and I really am so excited. I even packed last night instead of like throwing things into a suitcase early this morning per usual. Phew! Leaving right from work and it can't come soon enough!

I also wanted to alert everyone of some new blogs/links I've changed on the right of your screen. The first is Dr. Jane Shure's blog. She is the shrink for a really close friend and I almost feel like I know her personally b/c of how much she's helped my girl. She is amazing and also has a great practice if you need someone in the Philadelphia area. So, check it out. If you like SimplyLauren, you've GOT to check out her blog (even though they really aren't that much the same at all, lol). The next one is the link to my cousin's new book that they wrote. It's pretty awesome. You can read all about them/their book/their movie on the webpage. They are twins on my mom's side and they live in Cali like the rest of my extended family with the exception of me, my sister, my parents and Amos/Liz/Kate. Finally, There is Ethan World which is the blog that is run by Timmy's sister Jacque. All the art and things on the page are made by her son Ethan, who is an AMAZING artist and young man. I've had the pleasure of hanging out with him on multiple occasions and wanted to pass his art along so that others can enjoy!

Happy Birthday Charlie! I hope you have a great day! I'll be thinking of you! xoxxoxox

Ok, that's all for now, I totally have to get back to worky.

Love, SimplyLauren

Bald Eagles and Brewery's

Hey everyone!

So----just for the record, it's really annoying for me to sign into blogger b/c I originally signed up with my yahoo email and how it's like trying to be exclusively a google thing so I was prompted to sign in with my gmail email account, which I haven't started using it yet because it has my new last name and like---I didn't want to be that freak girl who wrote with her married name on an email before she was even married----so anyway, I need to find a way to switch this already existing blog to my gmail account without it being like messed up and having to start over b/c lord knows I am SOOOO not doing that.

One other day randomly at work this was blocked, so it's uber annoying trying to publish things when I'm supposed to be working. Anyway, I wanted to write about last weekend. It was so great.

So, for the past five weeks, Jake and I have been dog sitting for his parents dog: Doodle. Yes the dog's name is Doodle. Do you want to know why that's his name? Well---he's a goldendoodle, which is a cross b/t a Golden Retriever and a Poodle. Jake's dad had the "bright" idea of creating a "unique" name for him: Doodle. But, I usually call him "Dude" or "Doody" which is also funny. Anyway, so he's really cute but he's kind of young, like a little puppy or a little toddler. He looks like a muppet, yes, that is the best way to put it. He is the best cuddle dog and I sort of miss having him around. Anyway, while his parents were away and we had Doody, we couldn't really go anywhere so we had decided that after they came back, we'd go away for a weekend. The Chesapeake Bay Hyatt was running a special where it was like $99 a night and so we booked a nice water view room for this past weekend.

After I got home from work on Friday, we drove up. It was like perfect b/c it was about an hour and a half away. We ate a yummy (but a bit overpriced) dinner at this resto that was right on he resort and then we just drank champagne and relaxed for the rest of the evening. On Saturday, that's when all the cool stuff happened. We had breakfast in bed and then headed out to the Blackwater Reserve. It is like a wildlife reserve where they have all types of animals, but specifically blad eagles. I know it seems quasi-logical that since a bald eagle is America's bird, that they would be easily spotted and found all over. They got over their endangered hump, I think they are actually off the list right now but I had still never seen one. We REALLY wanted to get a glimpse of one that day.

First we walked down this road and we saw an eagle flying. But it was REALLY high up and you couldn't get the full eagle effect ya know? So---we drove down this other path right by the water and we saw a group of snow geese that was like 1000 strong. Jake took out his camera and started taking pix of them and all of a sudden, this small group of like 10 birds got up to fly and then the rest of the pack flew away for their like "fly-away" hour or whatever. It was INSANE. It was like a cloud of moving feathers honking away for like ten minutes. Jake got some GREAT shots. There was this dude next to us on the road that was also taking pictures of the fly-away event and his camera was like the size of my whole body. Seriously people, the lens was like INSANE long. Then, right as the whole bird flying thing was happening, we saw a bald eagle fly by us and then land on a dead tree in the middle of the water. It was exactly how you would expect to see a bald eagle. A big as FUCK bird like totally dominating over the immediate area. They are so effing badass, it's not even funny. We have a kick ass national bird for shizz. We were also snapping away at this bird too, so was the guy with the super-lens. I asked him if I could look into his lens to see how close he could get and seriously it was like zoomed into the birds pupil.

Then we were driving away and saw ANOTHER one!? Jake took more pix. It was really stunning, and I'm not trying to sound like a nature loving nerd, even though I sort of am. It's the truth. We grabbed a quick lunch and then drove about 2o minutes to St. Michael's. It's a cute little eastern shore town with a bit of poshiness to it, but it's still cool, not stuffy. We walked up and down the street a little stopping in some shops. I was really excited b/c we stopped at this one craft store and I bought a crab cookie cutter. I am SO EXCITED ABOUT THE CRAB COOKIE CUTTER! :) I just need a reason to make some crab cookies. :)

Then we went into this brewery. It's the only brewery on the eastern shore and it sort of looks like a barn, it's pretty cold inside but it's AWESOME. The owner was there and his partner and then the owners parent's came in. They were so interesting and fun to talk to. Jake and I sat at the bar and drank there for about three hours. Then we were tipsy and hungry and walked down to his amazing resto called "Bistro" right on the main drag. The food was delicious and yum. After dinner, we rolled our stuff selves bak to the hotel for more wine and more fun.

Sunday was sort of gloomy and rainy so it was the perfect morning for lazy, sleep in and relax. We got a late check out and then drove home. It was such a great weekend. I suggest you all check it out!

Ok----well, I have to get back to work now.

Loveskies,
SL

Annoying Boss and Nasty Candy

So, as many of you know. I really like candy. Like A LOT. I recently discovered a candy that I actually hate. I had lots of Valentine's candy in a dish oat my desk for people in my office to share, etc. I had hershey's kisses and also peanut m&ms. Most normal humans like those. I also thoroughly enjoy reeses peanut butter cups as well. Anyway, my co-worker (and one of my bosses) brought in these things called "Kissables" and they taste like A$$. The bag smells like shit when you open it. It's like a combination of hershey's chocolate kisses but then covered in a candy shell like m&ms. It's like two worlds you shouldn't combine. Anyway, I hate them but I feel obligated to put them at my desk to share. I'm more than happy to share since I think they are rancid.



In other news my boss is being super annoying today. I don't really have an any specific examples I want to explain, but he's in one of those moods. It's like my coc-worker Tara explained, "you know when you are little and 'mom' is in a bad mood, then everyone else is in a bad mood because she is like the catalyst?". THat statement is EXACTLY how it is here. However, since I'm so usually cheerful in nature and rarely have blow out attacks, I am not going to let him dictate my mood. Screw that!



This bad economy sucks, I wonder how much longer it's going to last. Who wants to do an over under on three years until things start to bounce back, even remotely. This stimulus package isn't going to do jack shit in my opinion. Or at the very least, do minimal to help the average American.



Trying to decide what's for lunch today. I have to get lunch for the boss man but he's on a call right now and it's not like I can just go in and ask him. Oh well....

Happy Hump Day!

xo, SL


P.S. Sorry I thought I posted this last week!
xo